If ELP are counted among the "Big Six"...

actually met a 19 year old guy---very smart very cool with a Yes tee shirt yesterday---he loves Yes--although he said his fav album of theirs was The Yes Album . His tee shirt was very cool I don't know where he got it.

Edited by twosteves - July 14 2021 at 19:36

Don't know about the 'big 6' thing but the debut lp is one of my favorite prog lp's of all time...period.

I really don't mind the lack of guitar, not to mention Lake winds up playing guitar a couple times on each album anyway. Besides, tons of other prog bands are so keyboard heavy, with such heavily effects-laden guitars, that you can hardly tell what's a keyboard and what's a guitar anyway. Le Orme seem to have done very well for their legacy without much guitar.

HolyMoly wrote: Popular as they are, I think they may have more detractors than the other biggies. Not sure why, but I would make a guess that there are some people going out of their way to downvote them, bringing their average down, to an extent that doesn’t happen with Yes, Genesis, etc. Just a hunch, but ELP polarizes people more than those other bands.

siLLy puPPy wrote: Lack of guitar is definitely on the top of many's list of why they don't like ELP as well as the over dominance of keyboards.

Edited by richardh - July 15 2021 at 00:12

richardh wrote: Sacro_Porgo wrote: I think the big six concept had a lot to do with popularity and sales at the time. If it had more to do with innovation, VDGG and Gentle Giant would likely take the spots of a couple of the bands in it now. It just so happens that, decades later, the majority of people on a prog website don't rate ELP's albums as highly as those of the other big six, probably due to a slight general change in taste away from the over the top and bombastic towards the beautiful and well composed. ELP were easily innovative as any prog bands. How is Tarkus not innovative or for that matter beautifully composed?  Pirates is also as well composed as anything within the prog cannon. There are several myths about ELP that are constantly perpetuated such as it was all about technicality (it really wasn't) . However they couldn't focus enough on albums and Greg Lake and Keith Emerson were often not on the same page. Trilogy is possibly the greatest example. Diversity of ideas is fantastic but no focus so it became a big fudged. Other bands managed to find a direction especially Genesis who smashed it from Cryme through to Lamb. Funnily enough though when they got more bombastic , albums are less highly rated. That makes your point I guess.

ELP have become the main scapegoat for all the perceived excesses and faults of 1st Gen Prog down through the years. They were ruthlessly ambitious and unashamedly populist throughout their peak from '70 to '74 when such a mindset was considered grand heresy in Rock. They also represented the polar opposite of the rather more purist and earnest approach of say, Crimson, VDGG and Gentle Giant (music is substance maaan...) It seems odd that a trio who were entertainers first and artists a distant second could attract so much vitriol but they sold a sh*tload of records, were an easy target and their brand of Cecil B DeMille chutzpah never sat well with the hirsute and involuntary celibate adolescent. They epitomize everything that is gluttonously wonderful and crassly abhorrent about Prog and are my favourite Progressive Rock band of all time for that reason.

Steve Wyzard wrote: ...why do NONE of their albums rank any higher than #82 (the debut album) on this site? Among the other "Big Five", all have albums in the Top Ten.

In my opinion, there are probably three main reasons why ELP is, somehow, a less appreciated band, nowadays. First, there are those bit silly tracks among the really great prog tracks that lower the final ratings of those albums. Second they have a very pompous sound massively made by the keys that isn't the favourite cup of tea for many people. Third, the absence of a guitar. As we know, the young people today tend to like essentially the bands where the sound is dominated by the guitars and not by the keys.

JD wrote: Because peoples 'OPINIONS' don't mean 5hit ! And that's what these ratings are, collective awareness or not. However, it is a 'FACT' that ELP were one of the most early innovators of a musical style that would go on to have an entire genre dedicated to it. Does that help?